


Now they see me, now they don't

by MechanicalMermaids



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:31:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechanicalMermaids/pseuds/MechanicalMermaids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys is an android. </p><p>A very troublesome android. </p><p>An android who's currently in charge of the entire space station.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Nakataka says I'm not in touch with my emotions."

Timothy exhales tiredly. There's a body floating around in an artificial pond, face down and painting the water with a dirt red.

"I mean, what an _asshole_." Rhys continues in unnecesairly hushed tone. Timothy's hand slides down his face seemingly on it's own accord. " I'm barely up and about and _there he is_ , breathing down my neck like I'm not the sole reason he still has a job."

Rhys is an android.

"And he says--" Rhys clears his throat, like someone who's about to pull a half assed impression of the person he despises, but what comes instead is a half distorted audio of Professor Nakayama wheezing " ' _\--Jack is only gone for a day you twisted freak, but if you try to surprise strangle me again, you **are** going back into the freezer._ '" Rhys lounges back into the enormous yellow chair with a sour expression, chin resting on his clasped chrome hand. " Well, good luck I suppose? I'm not going back this time."

A very troublesome android.

Timothy recalls a frantic ECHO he received from Nakayama this morning, listening with sleepy comprehension to what was a mirror twisted version of the briefing his boss gave him, before heading off to Pandora.

 _' **Do not** I REPEAT, Do. Not. entertain his delusions of being Jack_ ' Which actually made made Timothy chuckle briefly, because, _really?_

Couple of years ago, Nakayama came up with a mad idea, that he immediately dubbed _brilliant_ and something along the lines of _magnus opum of his scientific career_. Timothy is fairly sure that if at that moment of haste fumbling around the laboratory, Nakayama was striken with a vision of the future, his research would be up in flames by the end of that day.

That bad.

Nakayama, driven by the thinly veiled resolution to finally get laid, attempted to launch the project to clone the entire Handsome Jack. For science. Which was in turn shot down by Handsome Jack himself. And that, seemed to be the end of it.

But unfortunately for generations of future Hyperion employees, it made Jack wonder.

Timothy might exaggerate for the sake of story telling, but the way he sees it, years of far too many people telling Jack far too many times to _go fuck himself_ bore fruit in shape of a innocous looking hard drive dropped on Nakayama's junk covered worktop.

It is unclear if at this point the AI drive was still just a Jack based bunch of data, or suspecting mother of progress, it was designed to glitch overtime into RHYS. But based on the fact that six months later, Jack was entirely too jolly to be woken up in the middle of the night by the ECHO of crestfallen Nakayama informing him that something has gone _horribly_   wrong with his pet project, it is entirely possible that RHYS was a planned operation.

I mean, _come on_. Half an hour later, when Tim was dragged out of his own bed and summoned down to the lab to only witness Nakayama collapsed on the floor, sobbing incoherently and Jack grinning like a bedridden maniac, the name was already chosen.  


	2. The gold, cold blood, the hole in her chest yeah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings bad shit happens people die.

_"Are you saying it's fixed? I'm so glad,"_

_The scientist answers with a shy but hopeful smile and startles when the gun is suddenly placed in her hands. The chrome arm lifts off her shoulders and she's left, clutching the prototype like a grenade that's about to go off._

_"--Because every time in jams on your colleague, you are obliged to shoot yourself in a head."_

_The woman starts shaking her head with a faint whimper and Rhys' grin only widens._

_"Don't worry. This will either end very quickly for you, or we'll unload the whole clip on these useless bastards."_

_*_

_The prototype jams with a soft click. The scientist's expression falls and her head turns seemingly on it's own accord, looking for confirmation with terror in her eyes._

_"Well. Goodbye then. We'll let your family know how much it sucked to be you."_

_She points the gun at her head with a smile whine, never breaking the eye contact._

 

_A minute later the gun is handed over to the nearest standing intern, blood streaked and terrified._

_"You have an hour to fix this before I'm back."_

_Five remaining scientists nod eagerly._

_*_

**_"Nakataka says I'm not in touch with my emotions."_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sets self on fire* see ya


	3. Too Close, Too Loud

Thick, sound absorbing glass separated Jack from the inside of the empty laboratory.

Under the mass of cables connected to the machinery stabilizing the vitals, everything except the breaths reverberating in the room was synthetic.

Through the facial features distorted by layers of elastic fiber imitating muscles, the metalic glow of the jawbone pierced through, reflective in the harsh light of surgical lamps pointed at the table. The polymer eyeballs fitted into the sockets kept moving slightly, as if tracking some invisible movement.

 

Calmed by the non threatening thrum of the machinery doing it's own thing, Jack slid into the room. Installing a functioning nervous system allowed RHYS to gain some resemblance of the contact with reality and even though he still seemed to struggle with an expanded scope of comprehension, RHYS already manifested a surprisingly high adaptational skill and absorbance of information. Jack knew he would, despite Nakayoshi's mounting despair.  

 

Leaning close enough to observe the inner workings of the bright yellow ECHO lens, ongoingly calibrating the visuals with a determination of someone attempting to grasp the concept of space and perspective, Jack whispered

  

_"Hello there, princess."_

The bluish hue of a holographic display mounted behind the table, registered a spike in brain activity.

_"Hello Jack."_ Rhys' vision was mindlessly attempting to sharpen the image of a nearby lamp, fighting the blinding white light that kept dimming, revealing the lightbulb core, only to dazzle him again, when his gaze kept wandering back to Jack. _"Ugh."_

_"How's it going?"_

_"That artificial skin. It's itchy."_

_" Sorry to break that for ya, babe, but it has no right to."_ Jack exhaled, tapping lightly against the exposed metal of Rhys' wrist.

_"Well, but I imagine it would be."_

_"Jack?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Does your mask ever itch?"_

_"Because that's what I meant earlier. Leave it be. I like it."_

_"What? All this bare metal? Pinocchio doesn't want to become a real boy?"_

_"I'm not a **human,** Jack, so... Let them be scared. Just a little bit."_

_*_

**_Security feed at lab 17 /between - 2:34 AM and 3:15 AM - / has been manually removed / by user HJ69_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE LAST ONE. Or more like, this was the first one I wrote for this verse.


	4. Have you heard the news that you're dead? 1/3

"Sir, I uploaded your ECHO with the parasite's biometrics, you should now be able to see it, when you activate the eye."

"Fine. Effort - wasted, but fine." Rhys reloads the pistol, double checking the grip of his thigh holster. "So. Care to explain the source of that sudden zombie outbreak in accounting sector?"

"S-sir--"

"No, no. Take your time. That was my assumption here, since you're, you know, a _head of toxins research and development_."

"It- That type of corrosive damage was still in testing-- _We didn't know_."

"That sounds suspiciously like a lack of compet-- _Nisha_!" Rhys' face splits in a grin and the scientist instinctively startles, when the massive door behind the his back slides open.

"You alone here, kiddo?" Smooth voice calls out and Rhys circles the desk to meet her halfway. The scientist's expression seems to grow significantly more concerned for his life, upon noticing who the woman is. Rhys just hugs her unconcernedly with barely contained glee, almost making Nisha stand on her tiptoes, before letting go.

"Jack has a board meeting right now, but I'll be more than happy to entertain you, Miss Kadam." Rhys answers courtly, then slumps down in a garishly yellow throne and Nisha follows down on his lap, with mischief in her eyes.

"Can I press the button?" She asks with a fake coyness, like a part of a familiar routine.

"You can press the button." Rhys plays along.

The scientist's screams die down with the bloody gurgle after the trapdoor's more creative toys activate.

"Alright. Back to saving the station before Jack notices."


	5. Have you heard the news that you're dead? 2/3

Jeremy's typical work day in Hyperion proceeds as follows:

The Hub in the morning is usually a nest of very determined, if sleep deprived backstabbers. After caffeinating himself and being exposed to a white noise of at least three subtle death threats, it's safe to assume he'll be back in the land of the living. On this particular day, things are hardly typical.

Carmen arrivies to their usual table and pretty much collapses in a chair with a blank expression, that in this particular company only comes with witnessing several people being vented into space. That should be a first clue for Jeremy, but he just began catching up on this report for Vasquez, balancing his ECHO pad in one hand and manouvering the coffee cup to reach his mouth without accidents in the other, and there are limits to his frankly amazing multitasking abilities.

The second clue is a blood on her coat.

"Did you know that boss is back from Pandora?" She asks conversationaly, if a little hysterical. She means Handsome Jack obviously, but mentioning his name casually in the public areas usually creates unwanted drama, so unless someone really want to draw others attention, for instance by declaring " _Handsome Jack kicked me in the stomach today_!", it's not worth the hassle.

Jeremy just nods absentmindedly, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose. He actually didn't know that, but _meh_ , might come in handy later. But that creates another question.

"Wait. How do you even know that?"

Carmen just lowers her gaze, her mouth working wordlessly, so Jeremy decides to let it go. Pulling up the headphones, he goes back to bullshiting the statistics to Vasquez satisfaction.

The final clue arrives to Hub's cafeteria.

Some say that Rhys is not a human, which, alright, credit where it's due, there must be a very little of a geniuine human flavour left in that guy, to climb up all the way Hyperion's corporate ladder so young. And aside from the conspiracy theories, he _does_ have at least three visible cybernetic augmentations which... Honestly, makes it a bit unnerving to be around him.

Several conversations visibly falter as their president passes through to order a coffee like a normal human being. He even pays for it. Although his politness is probably just be a sign that they are his bitches anyway, so he might as well sweeten it up once in a while.

 

 

By the lunch time, Helios been overtaken by zombies and Jeremy is dead. And then he's not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will post the final part tomorrow. Questions will be answered. Zombies will be killed. Jacks will be baffled.


	6. did_u_get_wat_u_deserve.flac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely love it when I find random shit on my computer for fandoms Im no longer in. 
> 
> I also miss writing drabbles in this stupid format.

**Audio file [4:54] has been succesfuly recovered. //  overall recovery time [6:32:47 s] // _User HJ69_ »» SECURITYID6282.flac _> play<_//**

"God, it makes me nervous just to look at this."

"Hm, what did you ﬁnd?"

_[stupidly_kidnapped.flac file has been succesfully copied into folder "future blackmail"]_

  
"We were wrong. He's nothing like these atlas companion bot prototypes. If I didn't know any better, I would say that someone used a pre-existing brain scan to get to this level of complexivity."

"So you are saying he's like a human?"

"Worse. He's customized. This is all unnervinngly sophisticated. But at the bottom of it-- the base code looks like a hyperion tech."

"Hit me with it. Did they use loader bot or a claptrap for an ai?"

"Waaay worse, man. Someone actually sat down and wrote his entire program from the scratch."

"Fucking insane."

"There are no deﬁned protocols in this kind of programming more like... It's a virus. This whole goddamn code was designed to rewrite itself overtime."

"On top of custom hyperion programming. Who would be such a dedicated nerd? This goes way beyond sexbots."

"I won't even touch that one. But there's something else."

"Manufactuer note?"

"Not exactly, but you won't like this either way.

It says _H4ND50M3_RHY5_ "

**[ID CALLER DETECTED]**

"So aside from the obvious pun..."

"We are screwed."

 

**»»[0:57] DATA CORRUPTED ««**

"Could you, like, dial it down on this whole 'personality protocols'?"

"Only if you drop this "annoying bitch" preset of yours."

_[how_is_this_my_life.flac file missing]_

  
"He's self aware I don't like this."

"Dude, I've seen combat drones that are self aware, just calm down, alright?"

"He's too human. This is gonna get us into trouble, I just know it."

The echo eye is unnervingly yellow and it feels like an unspoken ownership.

"Where am I?" Bot's ﬁrst words startle them.

 

"Uh, you deal with it?"

**[Do you want to delete 6843 files from "hyperion secret stuff" directory?]**

_**»»Yes.««** _

After a short pause he speaks

"Cycle through start up protocols."

"What? "

"Uhh, open a new owner registry."

Rhys just blinks.

"Alright, you and your imbecile friend ﬁnd me a nearest fast travel station so I can---"

"Inniciate hybernation mode,now!"

"Are you two deaf or something? Fast travel station coordinates, now. " Bot commands and without waiting for an actual answer brings up a holomap on his palm. Oh great, an ass end of pandora.

 

"Ok... Maybe, maybe... the command circurity is voice or phrase activated?"

No such luck.

_[seven_hours_of_my_ai_life_wasted.flac file has been manually deleted]_

 

"I've never seen such a thing before. He has all these self inﬂicted compulsion protocols. They are also linked to secured memory banks so I have no idea what's the deal about that, but..."

"I dont get it. Can we somehow use it against him?"

"The easiest way to explain is that if he was a human, this would be a thing to bribe him with. Something he's fond enough of to make it his sub routine. Can you crack these data banks?"

"It's extremely well guarded but--- I will try to extract what I can. It will be patchy at best and completely useless at worst." 

 

_[wake_me_up_wake_me_up_inside.flac has been succesfully copied into folder "future blackmail"]_

 

He chuckles a bit.

  
"Oh, you gotta see this... this is... Oddly adorable, acrually. Whoever calls him that gets some privileges, that's for sure. "Rhysie". It makes me wonder."

**[SECURITY BREACH ATTEMPT DETECTED]**

"He stored that? An android that grows fond of a pet name?"

"As I said, at this point it's his treasured sub routine."

**[[Welcome, user Rhysie Cupacke. Your Echo comm has been succesfully connected with--]]**

  
The safe house is on ﬁre.

"C'mere, Rhysie." There is affection and subtle possessivenes and if they weren't being torn to pieces by the loader bots at this very moment, he would appreciate the mystery solved.


	7. Combat Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember that one old role reversal prompt? With Jack in Opportunity trying to stop Lilith from doing bad shit? I updated it with my own ideas. As in Angel as a vault hunter. And as it happens, ai Rhys as her guide. Except, you know, with a betrayal twist. Since I'm gathering up all of my android Rhys scraps in one work, I thought I might as well add this one up. 
> 
> who was I in 2015 anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested in the chronology of this verse to which the short answer would be "shit fuck I don't know either", but for the sake of this introduction I will make an effort and remember Things.  
> This takes place after my headcanon presequel, where Rhys still had his android body and used to run errands for Jack when he was still fighting to get on top of the Hyperion chain. Then, as basically everyone betrayed Jack, Rhys got partially destoryed and his AI was thought to be completely lost. Mind you, Angel is still doing alright in this verse, since Jack had Rhys to do most of the heavy lifting for him data processing vise. Angel's still a siren though.  
> So Rhys eats shit at the end of pre-sequel, but then somehow Lilith picks him up and repurposes his AI to serve her cause. So basically Rhys is a hyperion ai forced to work for Lilith and lure Angel into a trap. The key is charging in the Sanctuary city center cause Dahl has been trying to get this shit from caustic caverns for fucking ever.  
> Angel's train ate shit because of Tina's explosives  
> Jack doesn't wear a mask in this one and wears his scar out cause it's a statement. Or something.  
> A good (?) guy Jack.

**Exectuting shutdown shift**  
**Diasbling subsystems**  
_Securrrriing memoryy banksssssjack_

[ 0:0000000000000000000000000000100000000008ssss >> ** _play?????????????????_** <<]

_play?_

ppr

press.

> _play_ <

 _What is he doing?_  
Rhys was lying unnveringly still, staring vacantly into distance while the echo eye glowed softly gold  
_Dad they just fried his power core. He's—_  
Nonono _don't-_ don't say that don't you _dare_ Angel—

....

...

..

*

_Angel? A'right angel listen this is important could you-- could you stop playing with this echo sim for five minutes? Yeah thanks pumpkin._

 

Loader bot burst with flames, sending sizzling yellow shards in all the directions. Angel barely had time to take cover behind one the seats before the windows shattered and an unforgiving howl of the wind found its way into the wagon . All too familiar pulse of phaselocking that occured soon after, made her stagger back and reload the handgun just as the heat of another bot's explosion hit her in the back and sent her flying.

"Check the corridor." Voice modulator made the command sound harsh and unforgiving. The rhythm of the railroad stuttered like a heartbeat.

"Firehawk." Angel whispered urgently. If anyone was listenin on the echo-- Wilhelm fighting the hired vault hunters in the back, dad biting his nails anxiously at the Opportunity's command centre--

**Lilith was here.**

 

_You're the only person I can trust this with, Angel. I **know** that it seems scary, but hey, wilhelm's gonna be with you all the time and he's, you know, **a badass**. And- and more importantly, **you're** a badass. So don't worry about this so much, okay?_

 

 

 

Shockwave knocked her back and she grunted reflexively putting her hands up in defense. Behind her a sound of Wilhelm's continued blitz stuttered away with a sound of machine gun fire.

This stunt was going to drain her.

Firehawk kept advancing on her, largely unimpressed by the waves of Hyperion soldiers burned to death on her path. Something hit the cart door behind her with an audible impact, catching Wolf's attention. Drone been sticking close to her so far but the way this battle was progressing--

"Just give up already. There's few of us in this world already as it is and I don't want to kill ya."

 

  
The blood feels sticky warm in her mouth. It's the first thing that Angel notices. The second is the mind numbing cold that penetrates her bones. The northern winds are swirling thick with a smoke and the cacophony of bending metal. She's no longer on a train.

"Fuc-- Crap," She mutters, spitting blood. Lying on the barren ground, Angel's immoblizied by overall surreality of this situation, her eyes drawn to the cold stiffened human limbs, portruding from the snow in unnatural angles. She blinks heavily. It's... distracting...

"Great, another dead Vault Hunter. Firehawk's been _busy_."

Angel blinks again. Now she's moderately alerted, even though half of her face buried in the snow feels numb and unresponsive. Not enough for bodily cooperation. Her tattoos flutter with soft glow.  
"Hey, you're not dead!" through the raging snowstorm the voice comes through, sounding cheerful and synthetized and not what Angel was expecting. Her wrist continues to blink with blue through the soft leather glove and clearly that means something because she feels herself slightly sliding away from the brink of death. With a pained grunt she moves her head around, crawling towards the source of non-human voice.

"Help..." She croaks weakly because shes not her dad and therefore not above asking--

With a whirl of a wheel a bright yellow claptrap slides into view. "You know what, nevermind." She grumbles quitely, eyes sliding shut.

"THAT was a huge ass blast. Your train stood no chance against these crazy bun rabbity explosives--" That Claptrap vented expressively with its claw like hands, before noticeably losing interest and whirling away somewhere in the background, accompanied by the sound of working shovel " Aaand in case that was your personal business, then _yes_ that cargo full of eridium just teleported to the destination unknown." Angel's head thumped softly on a blood streaked ground. Then she attempted to shakily pull herself up on her knees. Dad was going to kill her. And that being said, her ECHO comm was shattered to pieces, resting miserably in her belt pocket.

"a-HA!" The Claptrap announced suddenly, making her startle and wobble on her knees. Her side hurt like hell and pressurizing it with her hand only temporarily quelled the steady flow of blood. "Here's an ECHO device that I _totally_ didn't just loot off one of these corpses!" the robot whirled up to where she was still collecting her marbles, reaching out to her with what looked like a low end scraped echo communicator.

Angel just stared for about two seconds before reaching out and stuttering a small "thanks". Its like her internal organs were slowly growing iceiskles.

She started powering up the communicator, while steadily becoming aware of her suroundimgs. The helpful claptrap was still chattering away and the overall visibility was poor aside from human shaped snowbanks and the carcass of the train cart burning in the distance---

 ** _"—You are alive for a reason—"_** Something bluish glitched at the edge of her vision accompanied by the soft voice like a crackling radio interruption.

" Excuse me? Dad?" she asked with a glimmer of hope. Angel wouldn't put it aside him to try to immediately intercept the random echo comm she just looted from a corpse.

 _"Angel, I'm here to help you."_ The visual somewhat cleared and if she squinted hard enough she could make out a shape of a face. A yellow tint of an eye was the only distinguishable feature.

"You're not my dad."  
A pause.

_"No, but I will guide you back to him."_

"Who... Who are you?" she tried but the connection was clearly lost and the claptrap unit again commandered her attention, apparently done with scavenging for today.

"Come on, let's get you inside!" angel couldnt argue with a fact that indoors sounded very promising at the moment, so she followed the robot without an argument.

 

The dizziness was wearing off but the initial confusion remained. Following the last claptrap unit on pandora that seemed surprisingly well acquinted with the terrain, current snowstorm nonwithstanding, angel had to ask herself _why_ she was on that train. It carried eridium, the robot said so. But the pieces were just not coming together.

She still carried her broken ECHO comm. With some luck maybe she could extract the clues from out there.

"So, you are a claptrap."

"Technically, I'm a _frag_ trap" The claptrap says with a self important tone of voice, clearly expecting some kind of reaction, because it's side claps raise up attentively.

"What does that mean?" Somewhere in Angel's head a scrap of useless information makes itself known, but she can't pinpoint it.

" _I_ can climb stairs!" It says with clear delight, then as an afterthought " _And_ shoot guns, but that's not important."

That makes Angel's eyebrows raise in surpise.

"You can fight? As in, with firearms?"

" _That_ was a long time ago and since my concept of time is nonexistent, I don't even know what the f*ck I'm talking about!" It replies cheerfuly. Or miserably. It's hard to tell with it's speech protocols.

"Let me get this straight." Angel interrupts patiently "You can fight _and_ climb stairs, but you are still trapped out here?"

Claptrap visibly sags and whirls around for a moment as if silently fretting.

"Captain Flynt stole my mod so we could play _dodge the blowtorch_ without cheating."

"So, you're a claptrap again."

"Rude, minion! Very rude!" Claptrap points accusatory pliers at her. "Your father _will hear about this_ — Actually, please don't mention this to Handsome Jack or he'll turn me into a pile of scraps." He adds quickly with a panicked stutter.

 

It was tougher now, that she gained knowledge of the fact that she was universally trapped on a glacier with a last claptrap not powered down and the gentleman scholar, the only apparent resident of Liar's Burg, now that Angel killed all the resident bandits. And she had to do it the old fashioned way, equipped only with extraordinarily shitty Tediore rifle and the distraction provided by the bullymongs who were as likely to beat her to death as they were on a quest to burry captain Flynt's men under a bunch of frozen rocks.

While her claptrap busied itself with exchanging increasingly bizzare threats with captain Flynt, (its ECHO device for some reason broadcasting the drama publicly to all nearby users), Angel was tinkering with the nearby fast travel station. She also audibly ignored sir Hammerlock's concerned questions about whenever or not it was wise to play around with wavelenghts of space and time.

"I _need_ to get to Opportunity." she explained again albeit increasingly less patiently. Whatever good her Hyperion override codes have done her, the AI stopped making a fuss after Angel bodily removed the outer shell to connect with the interface.

" _Welcome, prodigal daughter._ " Hyperion interface greeted upon user identification. Did angel mention that her dad was very strange?

She rolled her eyes, ignoring Hammerlock's quiet snicker.

"Exectuting phaseshift - Manual override; location "Opportunity" . Using administrative codes--"

_" We are sorry. Location "Opportunity" is not avaliable."_

"Ugh, then-- then Lynchwood, please?"

_" **ERROR.** Prodigal daughter, location "Lynchwood" is only accesible through the local railroad."_

"Ugh, _Nisha._ I forgot." Angel bit her lip. "Dust, pretty please?" She'll figure out how to hack the vehicle then and—

_**"ERROR. LOCATION OUT OF RANGE."** _

How. How was this happening to her? Something in her chest kept growing tight with rising anxiety. It was like this one time she was little and got lost in the Hub's shopping centre and that was also a story of how Blake almost go set on fire but that was not the point right now—

"Location "Jack's office". Angel's voice rang strangely calm in her ears but apparently not steadily enough, because she was on the receiving end of Hammerlock's worried expression just as after unberably long request processing time, the voice announced

_"Helios has been alerted of your dissapearance, little angel. Please remain in the current sector and your dad will retrieve you shortly."_

**Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.** _He kept the damn protocols. Why did he keep these protocols?!_

_The wave of homesickness that hit her was frankly ridiculous._

Hammerlock was pointedly Not Looking at her.

"Show me the avaliable traveling locations" She said through the gritted teeth.

Liar's Burg last mayor must have been really desperate to keep the settlers in place because the only avaliable lovations she found were predictably "Liar's Burg", "Frozen Wastes" and _someone's_ clear interference that she was mildly impressed with called "Claptrap's Place".

But still, no Opportunity. Not even main Headlands outpost.

"Damn- darn it." angel muttered unplugging her port from the fast travel circuits lest she would get frozen solid to it.

"Perhaps it would be wise to take the scenic route."

Was hammerlock sassing her?

"Are you sassing me?" she turned around, still crouched in front of the half dissasembled machine.

"I'm simply providing the most logical solution to your problem, young lady." he answered courtly. The lone bullymong howled in the distance. For some reason it was only then that Angel truly realised how _stuck_ she was.

"I'm sending a distress singal." she decided and her voice _did not_ waver at the last word or so.

"I'm afraid that is also quite impossible." Sir Hammerlock sounds surprisingly calm for someone who's currently stuck on a Death mountain with an electric fence and a Jakobs shotgun being the only thing standing between him and the hordes of Pandora's finest fauna. He seems to breath it in, perched on a snowy bench and observing the lazy swirl of the aurora borealis. Angel just shakes her head, deciding that old people are just weird like that.

But unfortunately he's right. The signal is nonexistent.

"Any nearby catch a ride stations I should know about?"

Hammerlock just burst out a short laugh as if she told a fine joke.

Angel's shoulders sag. Somewhere in the distance Claptrap is executing its bizzare silent dancing routine. And mindlessly drawn to it, her brain comes to the conclusion that Nisha would know what to do. Or Wilhelm. Wilhelm would probably just keep punching through the glacier until he created the direct tunnel to the Headlands.

But Angel was not a vault hunter. Consistently a siren. Sometimes hacker. But not a vault hunter.

**

IN THE NEXT EPISODE **(COMING NEVER)**

 _"Greetings, princess of the universe."_  
"We are going to have a talk when I get back."

*

"There was four of them— Another siren—"  
**"Damnit."**  
"A Dahl soldier, he had this— emblem. A dual wielder and... Some kind of robot assassin whatever the hell that was—"

*

 _"Friggin' idiots teleported their floating banditville right next to Opportunity. Ohoho, just wait you shitstain bandits, I will get my hands on that mortar and blow you all to freakin—"_  
"Dad, please, I'm trying to talk to Rhys."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge inspo back in a day was Metric's Combat Baby. Should probably be read while listening to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I wrote as the part of the bigger verse I will never get around to actually writing.


End file.
